Sermons

So, why don't we turn to Luke 11, Luke 11, and we'll be looking at verses 29 through 32 this morning. I want to reiterate that I'm grateful to be with you all and just humbled by the invitation. I don't ever feel like I'm truly qualified to get to do what I do, and I don't mean that in a biblical way, I just mean that in a knowing God kind of way. And so to do that anywhere, let alone here with all of you, is a privilege and a joy and an honor. And so thank you for the invitation. Thank you for having me with you. And I'm grateful that instead of having to come up with something to say, God's already said it. And so why don't we look to it together in Luke 11, verses 29 through 32.

God's word reads, "When the crowds were increasing, He began to say, 'This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.'"

[Prayer] Father, thank You for Your word. And we ask that this morning You would work in us by the only means that is able to change, transform, and save lives. In order for us to leave this place any different than we came in, Your Spirit will need to refresh us and encourage us and exhort us and convict us, not by the words of any one man, but by Your words here in Scripture. And so, Lord, use these words of Jesus that were spoken to the people of Israel, really, and to a generation that is much like ours, a generation that is well aware of who God is, is too familiar and too well acquainted with who God is, and may be so acquainted with God that they've missed Him completely.

This morning, if there's anyone here who does not know Your grace or Your love, would they see it in the face of Christ? For those of us who know You, love You, and treasure You, would You give us confidence in that we are saved only by grace, that though we stem from a generation that's wrought with wickedness and evil, we are now in God's family through Christ; and in Christ, we are secure for eternity. We pray that You would work mightily in our midst this morning. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. [End]

There has been no shortage of theologians and scholars who have sought to prove God's existence. Everyone would love to point to the fact that God is truly out there and that God is real; and there's every argument that you can imagine under the sun. There's a cosmological argument, an argument of first cause. It's a very simple argument, otherwise it's just to say that if we're all here, something had to make that happen, cause and effect. There's a teleological argument and it takes us to a place of design. And not only is it that we're here, and if we're here, something had to put us here. This argument says we're here because there's someone out there who was able to design this

I came out with my family. And speaking of design, the one place my wife wants to go is to the Magnolia Market silos. I don't know what they're called. And I said, "Why would you want to go there?" and she said, "Because they've designed everything we know." And I said, "That's why I don't want to go there," and she said, "Yeah, but we have to see, we have to see what the original, what the former starting place of this all was," because, you know, everything that we buy in our home is informed by Chip and Jojo Design.

Someone had to come up with this style, with these people, with this form of living, and someone had to design that. And some will point to a designer, an intelligent designer who's brought all these things to be about. There's an ontological argument. It's not just the concept that we had to come from somewhere, and it's not just the concept that someone had to know and have the creativity to put this together, it's the argument that that person, whoever that is, has to be perfect or else he can't be God. If there's anyone out there, he has to be better than us.

Men throughout history have given themselves to every argument under the sun to prove God's existence, and there's no shortage of evidence unto God's existence. Jesus steps into the scene of human history to evidence God's existence. And the gospel of Luke is written not just so that you would know that God exists but that you would know that God exists in Jesus. And so time and time again what we've seen in this gospel is that God is real, that God exists. But what's more is that as we look to know God and call Him by name, we keep finding ourselves saying, "Jesus."

If we want to know God, we're going to have to come to terms with Jesus. It's why, right before this section in which we are here in the gospel of Luke, you see in verse 27, as Jesus is saying these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to Him, "Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breast at which You nursed."

You would think Jesus would say, "Amen." You're right. That was the point. "Yes, I'm the one that you should worship, and I'm exactly the one who is blessed. I'm the one who is God, and I'm the one who came to prove God and to prove God through Myself." But instead, Jesus says, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it."

Jesus has gone through this gospel proving God's existence by proving His Godness. But He turns a corner here in Luke 11:29-32 and He does something that you would consider, or we would consider, all to be very contrary to what He should do. You would imagine that if He's gathered a crowd that is following Him.

As it says in verse 29, "The crowds are increasing." These crowds are numerous and they're growing. If Jesus is amassing such a large crowd, then, "Jesus, do it; fully and finally prove to everyone who You are." And that's exactly what these people want. And Jesus' response to them is simply this: "There is no amount of evidence that produces faith. There is no amount of evidence that produces faith."

Though men throughout human history have given their lives to prove that God is out there, it's not evidence that has produced faith. Though Jesus has time and time again sought to demonstrate that His own Godness, His divinity, His deity, though Jesus has proven time and time again exactly who He is, He's been confronted with people who earlier in this chapter think, "Well, if He can do all this, He must be the devil himself." It's not evidence that proves who Jesus is, it's faith.

Evidence, evidence is good, and evidence is necessary, but evidence hasn't saved anyone. And Jesus, here in Luke 11:29-32, He wants us to understand that we don't need more evidence, we need to take Him seriously. We don't need more evidence, we need to know what He's saying is true, and then we have to ask ourselves the hard question, "Do we believe Him or not?" We don't need more evidence, Jesus has nothing left to prove to us; we simply need to come to terms with, "Is Jesus God or not?" because that changes everything. We don't need evidence, we need to believe.

Friend, some of you here have seen the evidence, and you still don't believe. You want God to prove Himself to you time and time again. You're waiting for God to do something that would match your desire for Him to show up in your life, and there is no evidence quite like who we see here: Jesus. And if you can't take Jesus for who He is, there is no amount of evidence that will suffice for you.

Jesus tells us that Himself. In Luke 16:31, having given the story of the rich man and Lazarus, where Lazarus is in heaven now with God, and the rich man is now in Hades in hell, oh, wishing for a respite and some solace for his soul, he says, he cries out in verse 24, really, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me. Send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water even to cool my tongue, for I'm in anguish in this flame." It's a little too late, so late that the words that the rich man hears in verse 31, "If they don't hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead."

And that's exactly the point here. Jesus says the evidence is not the problem, belief is. There is a sign coming. The issue isn't that God is not going to give evidence, the issue is, "Do you believe it?" because there will be no more evidence than this. Jesus is a dead man walking.

In Luke 11, Jesus is beelining to the cross. Jesus is heading to Calvary. Jesus is going down a direction by which He will shed His blood on a cross for sinners. And all those who believe in Him don't just believe that Jesus gave His life, they believe He took it up again. All those who believe in Jesus recognize it's not just that Jesus atoned for our sins, it's that Jesus is the victor over sin because there is no grave in which Jesus resides.

Friend, I don't know who your Jesus is, but the sign that we will see here called the sign of Jonah, it's the sign that Jesus is the one who lived, died, was buried, and raised again; and if that's not evidence enough, nothing will save you. Friend, you don't need more evidence, you need faith. And this message is for those who have sought Jesus on their own terms to be confronted with Jesus on His terms. If you need to be saved, then look to Jesus.

Now, if you're here and you have been saved, this isn't a salvation message for you, but it is a reminder to you that like the people that Jesus is speaking to here, these people who are good at being religious, these people that are good at following after Jesus, that we too are prone to follow Jesus for the wrong things. And the basis of why we love and follow after Christ is because confronted with His truth and His beauty it's caused us to repent and believe. Let's look at this text together and let's see that there really is no evidence that's too great, but there is a faith that God gives for us to believe; that faith has to be in Jesus.

Number one, I want us to see "the sign, the sign." And we see that here in the very beginning of this passage. There's these crowds that are increasing. But notice, Jesus blurts out what you would not expect Him to say now that He's finally got everyone's attention. So we've got a big room filled with people. Everyone's here to listen to Jesus and to hear what He has to say, and Jesus says, "This generation is an evil generation."

What a way to make everyone go home, right? "You finally got everyone's ear. Everyone's pressing forward to hear what You have to say. Everyone's following after You. In fact, everyone has seen Your power and Your might. Everyone can testify to what You're capable of doing, to healing the sick and healing the lame, and making blind men see, and raising people even from the dead."

They have seen this man cast demons out of someone who for years no one would have anything to do with. They can testify to needing to get close to this man and seeing what He can do for them. And the first words they hear is, "This generation is an evil generation. You've all come to Me because you think I'm some kind of circus monkey. You've all come to Me thinking I'm some kind of magician. You've all come to Me because I'm a great healer. You've all come to Me because of yourself. You must come to Me for Me." That's the point that He's going toward here.

"This generation," it's a broad term, and it's meant to be broad so that we can understand that we fit in there with these people, too. This generation is our generation. And there's no mistaking that it's an evil generation. It's a generation that does what's right in its own eyes. It's a generation that lives by however it feels. It's a generation that has no appetite for God, but desires to reject God at every turn and at every corner. It's a generation that if it desires God at all, it desires a God that looks like itself. This is an evil generation. It's existed then and it exists now. Now, this generation would love to prove God. That's why Jesus says here, "It seeks for a sign."

In fact, Jesus had already said this earlier in this chapter. As Jesus is going around in verse 14 of chapter 11, He was casting out a demon that was mute. "When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. But some of them said, 'He cast out demons by Beelzebul the prince of demons,' while others to test Him kept seeking from Him a sign from heaven."

It's an evil generation, not only because of its wickedness, its vileness, and its sin; it's an evil generation because it puts God to the test. And if you know your Bible, and maybe if you don't, just so you're aware, the other person to put God to the test is Satan himself. Matthew 4, we see it very clearly. Jesus goes into the wilderness to commune with the Father and the Spirit – forty days and forty nights of fasting and prayer. And who meets him there? Satan, who puts Him to the test, by which we get those incredible words of encouragement, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." And that's why I put that to practice, Mark. When I landed, I didn't want bread, I wanted meat. I needed barbecue. I'm just trying to be biblical. Amen. See, I knew I'd get an amen for that.

Jesus highlights that to demonstrate not only His resolve to love God and His word, but also to highlight you aren't to put God to the test; that's how that ends. And here, these people are no different than Satan, asking Jesus to work miracles and wonders, and to do more fascinating and marveling works. But they desire to be in awe of what Jesus can do because they're not in awe of who Jesus is.

Friend, there is a grave difference. I am convinced that many will be on the wrong side of eternity because Jesus was simply to them a factory of blessing as opposed to a Savior and a Lord, because Jesus was simply a means to an end and not life's greatest treasure, because Jesus was simply one who would give them everything they wanted, but what they wanted was not Jesus Himself.

So, what is this sign? "This generation seeks a sign." And notice, Jesus doesn't say, "I won't give them one." He says, "No sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah."

Now, notice what that means. One, the generation, these people are looking for a particular sign. They desire for God, for Jesus, to do something particular for them, something like what He's been doing: "You know that part where You know how to take fish and bread and make a lot of it? We could try that again. You know what? If you want to get out of fish, there's other meat markets here. We can try brisket. We can try pork. We can try chicken." You can't try pork, not in those days. "But You know how You've healed all kinds of people. In fact, we've heard stories that that one person in particular was healed simply by You telling someone else that You would heal them even though they were far away. Why don't we do some more of that?"

Jesus is not interested in making people wow at who He is, Jesus is interested in them understanding not only that He's there and that He's God, but why He's there and why He's God. He's going to give them a sign, not the one they're looking for. They will get the sign of Jonah.

Now, that should cause anyone to quickly ask themselves, "Why in the world would we give the sign of Jonah? Of all the men of God we could choose, of all the prophets we could choose, Jonah, great story, not a great sign." You know the story of Jonah. I mean, we've been reading about it since we were babies, and we grew up on this story of Jonah. There's a Veggie Tales movie on the story of Jonah; and if you haven't watched it, I recommend it.

But the story of Jonah, I mean, how many picture books don't you have of Jonah and the whale? We don't know if it was a whale or not, but it's fun to think about living in a whale for a little bit, kind of, if you're a kid, and all the coloring pages. And, you know the story where Jonah, the word of the Lord comes to him and tells him to go to Nineveh. And of course, that is a bit absurd to Jonah because Jonah is an Israelite prophet and Nineveh is in a Gentile land. It's in Assyria. We wouldn't want to go there; God has nothing to do with those people.

And Jonah knows better, he knows to obey. But you know what he does. Instead of going inland toward Nineveh, he goes out to sea. Instead of traveling 500 miles toward Nineveh, he goes 2,500 miles the other direction and he goes to Spain – habla español – and he gets on a boat. He pays to get away from God. And not only that, he jeopardizes the life of other people. And in the midst of that, the only solution is to throw Jonah overboard. And when he goes overboard, he finds a submarine, or it finds him, swallows him up, spits him up on land. And guess what? God says, "You still have to do what I told you to do. You still need to go where I sent you to go because I'm still going to do what I said I would do." God still was going to save Nineveh and He was going to get Jonah there either the easy way or the scenic route.

That's the story of Jonah, a wayward prophet, one who was disobedient, one who was disenfranchised with God, one who was angry at God. In fact, at the end of Jonah the anger of Jonah is kindled against God. You know why? Because he says, "God, I knew You were merciful. I knew You were slow to anger. I knew You were abounding in steadfast love. I knew You would save these people."

Why the sign of Jonah? Well, He tells us here in verse 30, "For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation." To color that in a little bit, I think it is helpful to see this sign from a different perspective. In Matthew 12, we have this same sign that's brought forth to us. And in Matthew 12, it's colored in just a little bit more, verse 40, "For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Now we're getting somewhere.

Why Jonah? Well, they have a lot in common. They're both from Galilee: Jonah from Gath, but Jesus from Nazareth. They're both prophets: Jonah a wayward prophet, but Jesus a willing prophet. But they both are called to teach repentance: Jonah to Nineveh, and Jesus to the world. They're both messengers: Jonah disobedient, and Jesus obedient. They both are fruitful in their ministry: Jonah angry about it; Jesus, as Hebrews 12 tells us, "For the joy that was set before Him, He despised the shame to save us." And they're both a sign: Jonah of being rescued from this great fish three days and three nights to deliver Nineveh from their sins, and Jesus three days and three nights in the heart of the earth in order to save humanity. That's the sign.

You want Jesus to do something for your life, then you need Jesus to die and rise again, in spite of everything else with my need, friend. And I don't know in a room like this what those needs are. I don't know what that diagnosis is. I don't know what that financial situation is. I don't know what that family discord is. I don't know what it's like to see that kid grow up and not know the Lord yet. I don't know what the issues that you might be facing are. I know that the greatest issue you have is that you are born against God and you need to be born again.

And I know that if Jesus came to do anything at all, it's not to fix up my life, it's to save me from an eternity away from Him. It's not to give me everything I want, but it's to give me what I need. It is not to be a God who acts as a genie for me, that every whim and wish that I have, He produces it. He came to be God, and if He's God, then I need to do that. I need to believe in him. I need to assent to that. I need to follow Him, not the way that I would like it, but the way that He's revealed Himself.

He came like Jonah, to preach repentance, to preach forgiveness, to preach salvation; and He came to be a sign that that is possible, secured, and guaranteed by His own life, that He would die for sins, but that He would rise again; that as the good shepherd, He lays down His life willingly for the sheep. And no one has power to take His life, He has the power to take it back up again. That's not just my Jesus, friend, that is the Jesus of the Bible. And if we don't have that right, we don't have anything right. That's who Jesus came to be. That is the sign.

Friend, do you believe this? Is this the Jesus that you know and love and cherish? Is your Jesus just a cultural icon? Is your Jesus just a thoughts and prayers kind of Jesus? Is your Jesus a bumper sticker kind of Jesus? Or is your Jesus the God of the universe who has proven who He is by giving His life for your sin-wrought soul so that you could be made perfect and holy and eternal? Is that your Jesus? Friend, I'm not asking because there's another version of this, I'm asking because there's no other version of this. It's as R.C. Sproul says about this text: "This isn't an invitation to believe in Jesus, it's a command. He's not asking for whether or not you like Him, He's not asking whether or not you agree, He's commanding that you believe." That's the sign.

Secondly, I'd like us to see "the shadow, the shadow." I don't think you understand how good we really have it. And verses 31 and 32 are meant to paint that picture for us. Not to believe in Jesus is insanity and it's leading to a destruction that we'll never be able to overturn for all eternity. And you need to understand that rejecting that kind of Jesus is not only an affront because you've rejected Jesus, but others have believed in God, taken Him seriously and received His mercy before Jesus showed up. That's what 31 and 32 are going to tell us.

Verse 31 begins with the example of the queen of the South: "She will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here." And verse 32, "The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here."

At the forefront of this is that Jesus is then declaring to these people, "What you need from Me is not more miracles, is not more magic, is not more displays of power. What you need from Me is the truth and to respond to it. And what you need in terms of response is repentance, a turning away from sin, a denial of sin, a getting rid of sin."

And not just that, friend. A lot of people consider repentance and that's all it is for them: "I'll just stick away from bad stuff. I'll stay away from the things that are wrong. I'll stay away from what's evil." Repentance is not just staying away from what's evil; that puts you in a neutral zone. Repentance is active. Not only have I done away with sin, I have now moved toward righteousness. I am walking by grace through faith in Jesus in a new life, a new way. I'm pursuing after God."

Repentance is what Jesus came to proclaim. And these hard-hearted Israelites, these hard-hearted unbelievers, these hard-hearted religious people, they are in a position of being condemned. They are almost in a hopeless situation, and if they want evidence, they have it. Others have believed without Jesus' presence. And firstly, here you have the example of the queen of the South. This is a story that's told to us in 1 Kings, and in particular, I would draw to your attention to 1 Kings chapter 10, 1 Kings chapter 10. It's what's noted in 1 Kings to us.

This is the Queen of Sheba. And in chapter 10, verse 1, "When the Queen of Sheba heard the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions." No Jesus yet. But Solomon, the wisest king the world has ever known, is so wise, is so intelligent, is so just, it beckons this queen from the South to visit him and test him to see what this is all about. And I want you to notice what she takes away from her encounter with Solomon, verse 9 of 1 Kings 10: "Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, He has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness."

The Queen of Sheba saw Solomon and praised God. The Queen of Sheba came up to see Solomon because of all his wisdom and left saying, "Solomon is wise, but God is wiser. Solomon is a great king, but it's evident his God is a greater God."

"The queen of the South leaves knowing God better than this generation." That's what Jesus is saying in verse 31. And there's a future tense going on in Luke 11:31. The idea is that there is a day when every single one of us will stand before God in judgment. Jesus is looking forward to that day. Jesus is now looking at that day where all of us will stand before God and give an account for our lives, and here He says, "Those who reject Me, you are condemned, and one of the ways you are is that that queen will be standing there saying, 'Why didn't you believe?'"

Notice, "It's not just that you didn't believe, and it's not just that the queen of the South believed in Solomon, it's, "Behold," – end of verse 31 – "something greater than Solomon is here." "Why didn't you believe? I got to see Solomon in all his wisdom, but you got to see the One who gave Solomon wisdom. I saw Solomon's kingdom, the kingdom of the wisest man who's ever lived, but you got to see the wisdom of God; and you did not believe?" Notice, it doesn't say, "someone greater than Solomon is here." "Something greater than Solomon." It is to say not only is it that Jesus is greater than Solomon, but His wisdom is greater than Solomon's.

And it doesn't end there. It won't just be the queen of the South who is standing there in judgment over these people because they have rejected Christ. So too, verse 32, "The men of Nineveh, the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it." That's a lot of people.

In Jonah chapter 4, the very end of the chapter, Jonah is crying out to God and bemoaning the fact that as he's been sitting at the outside of town looking down on Nineveh, hoping for God to just burn those people alive, as he's sitting there, God causes this plant to grow to provide some shade – it's got UV protection, all that good stuff. And then God sends the hungriest caterpillar you've ever known, and that guy just starts chomping at this plant, and now Jonah's head is burning up the same way he thought Nineveh would. And Jonah is angry at God, and Jonah pities a plant, and God's response to him, "Do you do well to be angry about the plant? What about Me? And what about the 120,000 Ninevites who would have perished without Me? What about the 120,000 Ninevites who would have perished without Me?" Friend, Jesus is saying here there's 120,000 people at least, who will stand there to testify against those who've rejected Jesus.

I want you to notice something here. Notice that "the men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation." They don't believe. In fact, they stand condemned. I'm afraid that when we talk about resurrection and eternal life, we have conflated those words to mean that only the Christian will be resurrected and live eternally; and nothing could be further from the truth.

Friend, when all of us go, all of us will rise up again, all of us will be fit for eternity, but not all of us will be fit to withstand the glory of God; that's the issue. Not all of us will be fit to endure God's glory and to know His love for all eternity; that's the issue. Not all of us will know the grace of God abounding in us and through us for all eternity; that's the issue. But all of us will rise. Nineveh will rise, having repented and believed, but that generation will rise and be condemned.

Friend, who will you be with? These folks repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. Yet again, Jesus uses this terminology to point us to the fact that though He's like Jonah, He's greater than Jonah. And though what Jonah did was great, what Jesus is doing is greater. Jonah, this unwilling, disobedient prophet, went into Nineveh. And in fact, there's a great belief that what Jonah took into Nineveh as his message was an incomplete message. He only said five Hebrew words and they amounted to this much: "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown." That's all they got.

In fact, Jonah – it's said that Nineveh is a – if you were to understand how large it is, it's a three-days' walking journey. And the story of Jonah tells us that Jonah only went in one-days' worth of a journey, and the word still got to the king. Jonah, as disobedient as he was, walked into Nineveh halfway with a halfway message, and it still saved the whole town.

Friend, Jesus stepped into our world, not halfway. Jesus went to the fullest extent, not only to preach repentance to you, but to make it possible. Jesus has come to declare that you can be right with God; and He hasn't just said it, He has gone all the way to the cross, so that if you believe in Him, you aren't just believing in one who had a great message, but one who with great power is able to save your soul. "Behold, something greater than Jonah is here." He didn't just preach repentance, He made it possible. Jesus is the one who calls us to be saved, and then saves us. Is that the Jesus that you know? Is that the Jesus that you cherish?

I'm reminded as we close here, this is not an issue of evidence. In fact, Pastor John MacArthur puts it this way: "The issue was not a lack of light, but of sight. The issue here, it isn't that there isn't enough for us to believe in, the issue here is that we don't want to believe." That could be you, friend. And what you need to know is that Jesus didn't call you to repent and then not give you the power to do so. Jesus calls you to turn away from sin, to turn to Him, and then He dies on the cross and rises again so that you could know the message He delivered to you, He has now also given you the power to believe in.

You don't need evidence, you need faith. Trust, confidence, not in yourself, not in a worldview, but in a person, and His name is Jesus. Friend, if you're here, and you know, and you love Jesus, you might be asking, "Why is this for me?" And the reason is the same. The Jesus you know and love, He's much more than a religious figure. And that's what the folks in this day could not understand or comprehend. These were people who were so close to God they couldn't see Him. These were people so familiar with God that when His face came walking through the door, they didn't recognize Him. Why? Because in knowing God, they became very comfortable in themselves.

And it can happen in the church. In knowing proper principles, good morals, good behavior, good rituals, good worship, good everything, they couldn't see a good Savior. Friend, may the church never be a place where we become so comfortable in what we're doing that we aren't drawing closer to who Christ is. And if we want to know how we can stay away from that, we need to look no further than the way that this began. Not in verse 29, but verse 28: "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!"

Jesus hasn't been ambiguous with us. Jesus is not confusing, Jesus is clear. Jesus has revealed Himself. The word says everything we need that pertains to life and godliness we have, and we have it in Christ. And so let's not make up a way to know God and to honor God, let's follow Jesus so that we might truly know Him and honor Him. Amen. That's what Jesus calls us to here.

Friend, if you're here and you have not believed in Jesus, today is the day. There won't be any more evidence than this, and you won't need it, because everything you need is in Jesus. Let's pray.

[Prayer] Father, thank You for Your word. We thank You for its truth. We thank You that You have delivered to us a message of hope and life. Lord, the sign of Jonah is a sign to us of one who would take on death but not remain in the grave, who would live and live eternally, who lives and reigns even now, One who even at this very hour is orchestrating all world events is on a throne and is in dominion, and His power knows no bounds. It's of a Jesus who is in full control and always will be. It's Jesus who came to us; and though He was in the form of God, He did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being born in likeness of man, and He being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And therefore God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that's above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to Your glory and Your honor. Whether we like the message or not, sooner or later we will bow before You and cry out, "You are Lord."

If anyone in this room has yet to do so, I pray that You would move in their hearts to bow the knee to You while You offer that opportunity by grace. To those of us who have, Lord, help us and equip us not to grow so enamored with ministry that we lose Jesus in the process, and not to be such church people that we lose our affection for Jesus and what He's done for us. Help us to always come back to the gospel, that Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. And because Jesus came to seek and save, those whom He saves are always saved in Christ because He died and He rose again.

Thank You, Christ, for who You are. Thank You, Father, for sending Your Son, and thank You for the Spirit that reminds us of these things. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.